No Distance Left to Run
by cranesandcranesandcranes
Summary: Six years ago Tyler Black left his tiny hometown in Iowa and vanished, leaving a punk band and a heartbroken girlfriend. A name change and a personality transplant later he is now a senior figure in a New York bank. However, his past soon comes back to haunt him in the shape of his childhood friend, Kaitlyn, a feisty farm girl who also decides to swap the Midwest for the Big Apple.
1. Chapter 1

**Been wanting to do something AU for a while now, but I always worried about not being able to find a scenario where everybody was recognisable as their wrestling personas rather than just being stock characters who happen to share their name and likeness with wrestlers. However this one seemed to work. It's going to be told (I think) exclusively from Seth and Kaitlyn's points of view, starting with an introductory chapter for each of them (this one being Seth's) but I've got plans to feature over a dozen other current and former WWE stars in one form or another. The full story is a little vague in this opening, but all will gradually be revealed across the early chapters. Hope you enjoy!**

It was my typical Wednesday morning. The fact that this could be considered par for the course encapsulated what an improbable six years it had been. I arrived here with a few grand to my name and a one-month internship at an investment bank, and half a decade of hard work, perseverance, and yes, a hell of a lot of backstabbing and manipulation, here I was; Junior Vice-President of that very same organisation. A 28-year-old from the Midwestern abyss, rubbing shoulders with the great and the good of Wall Street. Even now I still take a degree of pride in what I accomplished.

The apartment was on the Upper East Side, on the junction of 2nd Avenue and East 77th Street. You could've fitted my college dorm into it about eight times over. There were no pictures from my graduation on the wall, or indeed anything that pointed to my existence prior to September of 2008. It was surprisingly easy to dismiss any questions about my early years. As soon as you said the words 'small town in Iowa', these Manhattan types quickly lost interest, muttered something to the effect of 'that must have been just _awful_ for you' and moved on. In their eyes you were no one unless you were here, and to my eternal shame I believed them.

It was 7am, I awoke to the buzzing of my phone. A reminder from my PA, a shy but resourceful young lady by the name of Alexa Bliss, about my meeting with Mr Regal at 10. Trusty, reliable Alexa. I'd have been lost without her. I only wish I'd told her that more often instead of working her like a dog. At least I remembered my conscience when it really counted. But it never should have gotten that far...

Cameron was already awake; fully-clothed (at least as fully-clothed as she ever was), sat at the foot of the bed, fine-tuning her make-up in the pocket mirror that seemed almost permanently affixed to her right hand. She'd be taking a private car from here to the VIP terminal of the airport, yet her cosmetics routine was little less exhaustive than for many TV appearances. It was almost as if she'd spent so much of her life with a camera on her she'd forgotten to ever not try. It would probably make her day if some amateur paparazzo caught sight of her leaving the building.

She'd made her name as the less talented but more media-savvy half of The Funkadactyls; initially the backing singers for the rapper Brodus Clay, they'd become a successful R&B duo in their own right before the spectre of 'artistic differences' reared its ugly head. Her bandmate, Naomi, had grown weary of the shallow materialism of commercial R&B and wanted to return to the soul and gospel she'd grown up singing. Cameron wanted to make money and be on television.

A year on from the inevitable break-up, Naomi had released her first solo album to critical acclaim but commercial indifference, and Cameron had a worldwide top-ten hit with an autotuned earworm entitled 'Girl Bye' (lyrically a transparent cash-in on the much-documented Funkadactyls split drama) and a reality show, _Totally Cameron_, airing to blockbuster ratings on the E! Network (I can tell you for a fact that there was no 'reality' to it whatsoever).

She was everything my teenage self loathed. Publicity-hungry, petty, catty, and utterly self-absorbed... and she was my girlfriend. I guess I was so keen to lay the old me to rest that I spent my time in New York doing everything and everyone I would've have avoided like the plague back in Iowa. The less I felt like the same person, the better I felt about the mess I left behind.

She was about to leave town for a week for a short press tour for her new album. I knew she'd be sharing her bed with at least one other man during that time, and she knew I'd be digging out my little black book too. It was a shallow, soulless sham, but it suited us both just fine.

Her phone buzzed into life and she snatched it from the dresser.

"JoJo! JoJo, where are you?!" she squawked.

"...The car was meant to be here five minutes ago! What am I paying you for again? Well, you better be! Goodbye!"

I might not have been the best boss in the world to Alexa, but compared to how Cameron spoke to poor JoJo I was a master of employee relations. I hope that girl was well-paid, that's all I can say.

"JoJo says she's they're two minutes away. I'm gonna go wait in the lobby," she said with a sigh as she finally tore herself away from her own reflection long enough to look at me.

"Two minutes... you sure we couldn't fit a quicky in?" I joked. Sex was what kept us going, there was definitely no conflict of interests in that department. Cameron was truly beautiful, on the outside at least.

"Was last night not enough?" she giggled, kneeling alongside me on the bed and throwing her arms over my shoulder.

"It's never enough," I replied, moving my arms around her waist to bring her petite torso flush against mine.

"I'll Facetime you when I get to Rio. I may or may not be wearing any clothes," she teased, pecking me on the cheek and rolling onto her feet.

"Bye, boo! Love ya," she chirped as she headed out of the door.

"Love you too," I muttered. In hindsight the fact my eyes never once met hers during this exchange, instead remaining trained on her tight little ass bouncing in her yoga pants, said it all. It was a shell of a relationship and I was a shell of a man.


	2. Chapter 2

**On we go with Kaitlyn's introductory chapter. There's a lot mentioned here that won't be fully elaborated on til later chapters. I'm hoping to have the story gradually unfold, so I hope that's working OK for everyone so far. Thank you very, very much to everyone who favourited, followed and reviewed after the first chapter. **

**Also, a little clarification. 'Tyler' discussed in this chapter refers to Seth, the idea being he changed his name following his arrival in New York (along with his appearance and everything else about him) to signal his new start and to make himself harder to trace for his girlfriend (AJ) and everyone else he abandoned in Iowa.**

It was the morning of my departure; August 26th 2014. I was stood on the front porch of the house, taking it all in one last time. Nearly every significant moment of my life has occurred in Donnybrook; this sleepy, simple Iowa town of 14,000 people. In many ways, I'm as typical an Iowan as it gets; I grew up on a farm, I could drive a tractor before I reached high school, I like beer and barbeque, I've never owned less than two dogs at any point in my life, my wardrobe has its fair share of plaid and denim... but that's only half the story.

I was never going to be built like a cheerleader, it's just not in the Bonin DNA. I was a stocky, spotty, slightly pudgy adolescent with no interest in what girls were 'supposed' to like and a short fuse even for a teenager. There isn't much room for deviation from the norm in a town like this, and my charming classmates never ceased to remind me I just didn't quite fit in. By 17, I'd successfully channeled my aggression into something more gainful than melodramatic journal entries. Exercise; and plenty of it, but nothing the other girls were doing, I was too proud for that.

While they were in yoga class I was pumping iron. I have no brothers, only a little sister, and my mother raised us mostly single-handed, so I'd been doing plenty of heavy lifting on the farm from a young age, giving me a good foundation to build on. I set about moulding my puppyfat into solid muscle. Naturally this just meant that the pricks and prickettes who used to call me chubby started calling me a man instead, but at least now I could kick their ass if they went too far.

I gave up on girls almost entirely, it took going away to college for me to discover that there were other females out there who loathed sparkly dresses, _American Idol_ and dancing in clubs just as much as I did (although I've since learned that the third of these can be quite fun in equally two-left-footed company). My friendship group came to consist entirely of guys; the male equivalents of myself, people didn't quite fit the all-American good ol' boy archetype. AJ was the only exception to my 'no girls allowed' rule. AJ had always been there.

18-to-21-year-old me had two-toned hair (jet black mixed with bleach blonde for maximum contrast), wore cargo pants and combat boots, and hung around Iowa's criminally overlooked punk rock scene. But I was never a groupie, and anyone who presumed so got a swift kick to the nads for their trouble. To be honest, aside from finally ditching the dye job for my natural dark brown a year ago (much to my mother's relief) I've not changed all that much.

In many ways, that was what made me decide to get out of here; time was standing still, and no one else seemed to care but me... well, that and finding out my boyfriend of four years had been giving it to my cousin for half the time we'd been together, anyway. That's enough to make anyone opt for a complete change of scene.

So, back to that morning. I hadn't noticed the front door opening behind me, or the light footsteps across the decking, but I still wasn't surprised when the arms gripped me snugly from behind. If you know Bayley Bonin is in the general vicinity, expect a hug at any time.

Bayley is my younger sister; three years, three months and fifteen days younger to be exact. We don't look especially alike; her hair is darker than mine, she's inherited way more of what photographic evidence tells us were our Dad's features, whereas I'm almost all Mom. Bayley has the combined blessing and curse that is the Bonin family curves just as I do, but that's about where the visual similarities end.

We're not too alike as people either; I'm cynical where she's optimistic, headstrong where she's withdrawn, streetwise where she's naïve, but we complement each other perfectly. I've fought _for_ her, but never against her. I'm the overprotective big sister from hell, all-told. But if you met Bayley, you'd want to protect her too. I can say with complete certainty she is the most honest, genuine, selfless person I have met. We were both brought up well, but she's retained a lot more of those virtues into adulthood than I have.

However, she's also a product of her environment through and through. All she wants to do is find a nice young gentleman, have some nice children, take over the farm when Mom and my step-dad shuffle on and live happily ever after. So far she's failed to even reach step one of that plan; to say she lacks confidence with the opposite sex is an understatement. And, despite being just as much of an internet geek as any suburbanite you'd care to meet, she's barely been to a big city in her life, and shows no inclination of doing so. I don't resent her for it, but I find it very hard to relate to.

It's probably for the best; she absolutely refuses to believe there are genuinely bad and vindictive people in the world. I guess it's hard to imagine when you rarely leave Donnybrook, where everyone says hello and comes out in costumed force for every hokey anniversary or holiday they commemorate. I hate that, she loves it with a passion. She's the most innocent and sheltered 25-year-old woman this side of an Amish commune, and I wouldn't have her any other way.

"Phew, I thought I'd missed you going when there was no one downstairs," Bayley sighed with relief.

"I'm not gonna fuck off to New York til God knows when without saying goodbye, am I? What kind of friend/sister/housemate would I be?" I asked rhetorically. The 'housemate' part had only come into being a few months earlier... after I caught Dolph with Charlotte. We'd inherited this old place, it had belonged to my grandparents; it was way too big for Bayley to possibly be happy living there on her own. It made sense.

"I bet your new housemates won't be as awesome as me," Bayley chortled, but through her joking I could see a genuine fear of being replaced.

"No one's as awesome as you, BB, no one," I replied, ruffling her hair because I forget on a daily basis that she's now a grown woman.

"Do these girls even speak English?" she asked, small-town obliviousness on full show. Her jaw had dropped in astonishment when I told her all three of the fellow twentysomethings I'd be renting an apartment with were from overseas. I guess the idea of moving halfway across the world is pretty mind-blowing for someone who considers a weekend in Des Moines to be exotic.

"Well, one of them is _from_ England, so I'd presume she does," I smirked as we each took a seat on at the wooden table on the porch.

"And the other two are from Ireland and Australia... so they'd consider themselves English speakers. Whether the rest of the world agrees, I'm not sure."

"Australia..._ crikey_," Bayley breathed in amused astonishment with her best Steve Irwin impression.

"You'll be meeting them all soon. No way am I letting you go any more than a month before you come visit," I smiled. Bayley's face creased with worry.

"I'm not sure I'd like that," she murmured fretfully.

"Ugh, AJ was just the same. You'd both love New York. They've got comic book stores that would cover a whole block of our downtown. There's some sort of sci-fi or video game convention every month. It's nerd paradise," I implored, giving her the hard sell.

"AJ's probably just worried about running into Tyler," Bayley replied darkly, with a mournful look across the horizon. What happened to AJ really troubled Bayley, even now all wounds had seemingly healed. It probably added to her own reticence to take the plunge with a guy.

"First of all, Tyler being in New York is just a rumour. That piece of shit could be anywhere on the planet and we wouldn't have a clue. Secondly, if he _is_ in New York, what are the odds of encountering this one guy in a city of 20 million? And if by some miracle our paths do cross, I don't care if it's been six years, I'm gonna kick his fucking teeth in!" OK, I guess what Tyler did to AJ still stuck in my craw as well.

"20 million? 20 million, I just... what does that even look like?" Bayley marvelled.

"How do you _be_ somebody in a place like that?"

"Well, that's the challenge, that's the excitement. I've got 50 job applications for everything from office clerk to tour guide. I could find myself anywhere doing anything, and that's fucking awesome," I enthused. Safe to say Bayley did not agree.

"_Be careful," _she instructed for about the 40th time since I told her of my plan, taking my hand in hers.

"I will, so long as you're careful with my pickup..." I replied, with a nod to the bright red Dodge on the drive. No need for a two-ton gas guzzler where I was going.

"...I'm gonna miss that baby. Great back seat, very spacious, very comfortable, be sure to make full use of it."

"Kaitlyn!" she yelled in disgust and discomfort. Bayley's such a prude, she's wonderfully easy to embarrass and mortify. So is AJ, or rather, so was the _old _AJ.

"We both know all that back seat's gonna have is the memories," Bayley sighed.

I could never bare to hear this. I could personally throttle every single one of those bullies whose taunts continued to have my beautiful baby sister doubting her own attractiveness to this day. Safe to say she dealt with that side of high school life less effectively than I did.

"For the last time; you're a sweet, smart, gorgeous young woman. For my money, you're Donnybrook's most eligible bachelorette. He's out there, trust me. He's out there," I assured her with my hand rested gently at her shoulder.

She looked at me and thanked me with her eyes. We never needed to actually say it anymore. Sadly, this tender, sisterly moment was soon interrupted by the blaring of a car horn. My taxi to the Greyhound station had arrived.

"I guess this is it," I said resignedly, getting to my feet and grabbing my bags from by the door. It was surprising how little of my possessions I actually _needed_ when it came down to it.

Of the hundreds of thousands of hugs Bayley has given me over the years, this was the tightest, most heartfelt of them all.

"Don't let it change you," she breathed tearfully in my ear.

"...Don't forget about us just cos we're not as cool or as sophisticated as they are. We're your family, and I don't just mean me, Mom and Steve. I mean all of us. AJ, Punk, everybody. We'll always be here to come back to."

I squeezed her as hard as I could without bursting her. Part of me was terrified about leaving her here on her own. If anything happened and I wasn't there to help... oh dear, I'd forgotten she was a grown woman again.

"I know, and that means so much..." I responded softly.

"...But you don't need to worry. Nothing's gonna change. You'll always be my sister, you'll always be my oldest friend. Nothing can replace you."

"Goodbye, Kaity. Call me when you get to New York. And text me each time you change mode of transport," Bayley urged, breaking the embrace and now sufficiently accepting to start to make light of the situation.

"Goodbye, Bayley," I replied, doing a very poor job of fighting tears of my own as I lugged my wares down the drive to the waiting cab.

_Goodbye people who love me. Goodbye birdsong. Goodbye unbroken horizon. Goodbye personal space. Goodbye time to think. Goodbye Donnybrook, Iowa; for better and for worse, you've made me who I am._


	3. Chapter 3

**This chapter is a little seedy and dark. I suppose the main purpose of it is to illustrate how far Seth has fallen morally and the company he is keeping. I'm really aiming for a major contrast between the Seth and Kaitlyn chapters in the early stages. Let me know if it works or not :P**

_"Alright, mate? Just calling to let you know I've given it some thought and I've told those Russki toerags to stick their rubles where the sun doesn't shine, and I don't mean Manchester. The contract's yours. The legal team will be sending the documents over in the next couple of days."_

I don't normally dance, but after hearing this message I broke out into the liveliest of jigs. Then I ran out of the office, past Alexa's desk into the main space just to gloat in the face of the two guys I beat to the Junior VP position, in spite of them working here far longer. Damn, I was a piece of shit looking back.

"So, um, guys, you know when you said I was gonna crash and burn and Hunter was gonna find out what happened when you let a jumped up kid run things? Well, guess who just nailed the Regal contract. You know, Randy, the one you were working at for two years and got nowhere?" I sneered.

Randy Orton and Kane Jacobs looked me up and down with disdain they no longer even attempted to conceal. I don't know how they suppressed the urge to hit me; their hotheadedness was the main reason they were passed over for promotion in the first place, after all.

Randy's dad had worked here, and was a favourite of the bank's now semi-retired Lifetime President and founder, Vincent Kennedy McMahon. Two years ago, the old man finally took a back seat and handed control to his daughter Stephanie and her husband (and now co-owner of the business) Hunter Hearst Helmsley. Randy had long been considered a shoe-in for promotion to executive level when Vince hung up his blazer... but then I happened. I was less impulsive than him, better with clients and generally less of spoilt trust-fund douchebag. The choice was obvious.

Kane had been doing the same job for 17 years; above grunt work but below actual management. They kept him around because he rarely complained and appeared to have zero compassion, a definite plus in the finance industry. A near seven-foot behemoth of a man with mismatched irises, he was terrifying both to look at and to converse with; we all knew he'd forever be kept hidden in the back office where his torrents of rage and sadism could be kept under wraps. Once feared and respected, his lack of upward mobility became a source of mockery, and this complete inability to take a joke led to him becoming a walking punchline in some circles.

So, it was safe to say they both had an axe to grind where I was concerned, but they couldn't say a thing. I had Hunter and Stephanie's ear in just about any scenario, I was the golden boy.

Taking a moment to savour their scowls, I pranced back through the door to my private sanctum, to find it was already occupied. In my chair, feet up on my desk, sunglasses placed affectedly at the tip of his nose, sat Michael Mizanin. I can barely bring myself to say this now without throwing up; but this conceited, misogynist egomaniac was my best friend at that point in time.

We called him 'the Miz,' but he came up with it himself. Always beware of people who come up with their own nicknames. He was an actor, star of the regrettably successful New York-based sitcom _My Awesome Life_. When the show ended after seven successful seasons, he made the inevitable leap to Hollywood and 'serious' acting, and inevitably failed (something he thoroughly refused to accept, in spite of all four of his feature film vehicles going straight to DVD). Now he was back in the Big Apple to revive his fortunes on Broadway.

"I thought I told security to stop letting you in..." I joked.

"...No one shouts 'cut' here, I work all day every day. You can't just waltz in to shoot the shit whenever you feel like it."

"I'll have you know I just finished three hours of intensive rehearsal..." he replied haughtily.

"...You should've seen it, Seth, that fucking queen Aiden English, he's _so_ pissed off that a hack from the idiot-box has gotten the lead over a serious Broadway ac_-tor _like him yet again. It's not 1924, Aiden! Theatre doesn't mean shit anymore. They need a real star from film or TV to put butts in those seats. 'Too good for TV,' too much of a tedious, balding prick more like."

"Well, I've had a pretty stellar morning too if I do say so myself..." I said proudly, with an aloof lean on the desk.

"...The Regal contract; it's in the bag."

"You finally broke the old limey bastard, huh? What did it? Did you use those jokes I gave you?" Miz babbled excitably. He'd snorted a line or two before coming here, I could all but guarantee it.

"Nope, just laid it down to him plain and simple. We're expanding, you're shrinking, your investment plan is at least 20 years out of date, let us help you out or you won't be here in 10 years,"

If there's one tip I would give anyone foolish enough to get involved with big business, it would be that buttering up and corporate schmoozing only gets you so far. People appreciate honesty... well, if you're being honest about how to make them richer, anyway.

"Cool, man. Ice fucking cool..." Miz purred admiringly, reclining further backward on the chair with his palms behind his head.

"...y'know, I should stop by here more often. I love all this cut-throat corporate shit, it's so intense. You're moulding the world, I'm just entertaining it for an hour or two at a time... Plus, I get my fix of sexy Lexi. See, this is the reason Maryse won't let me have a female PA... there's no way I'd be able to resist nailing a sweet, innocent piece of smokin' hot barely-legal _ass_ like that!"

I know, I should have told him to act his age and have some respect. Instead I laughed along. Maryse, an underwear model turned fashion designer no less, was Miz's wife. While he played the doting husband at home, in reality his conquest mindset when it came to the opposite sex had not diminished one bit. His remarks about Alexa were far from unusual, put it that way.

"Seriously, _how_ have you not hit that yet? What's wrong with you, man?" he questioned giddily, leaning forward onto the desk with his elbows.

"I've told you, she's got a boyfriend," I protested.

"So, you've got a girlfriend," he fired back

"I mean an actual proper, childhood-sweetheart boyfriend back in Ohio who she's faithful to," I said indignantly.

I may have fled from living that kind of life myself, but I still respected other people's wishes to do so. It was just about the only principle I still had when it came to who I climbed into bed with; the girls I fooled around with were always either single or in an equally open and meaningless relationship as mine and Cameron's.

"Well, who is he?" Miz asked with a derisive snort.

"I dunno," I shrugged.

"Exactly, he's no one. He's not one of us. You say she's from Ohio? Ohio bitches are gold-digging sluts, I would know. The amount of girls who wouldn't look twice at me in high school who now throw their panties at me every time I go back home, you wouldn't believe," he assured me. Somewhere within my mind, the punk rocker I once was seethed with rage. But at this point he was still buried deep, deep beneath a skyscraper of denial and delusion.

"I think I'll just take your word for it on that one," I chuckled politely, hoping to talk about almost anything else. But Miz was on a coke-fueled mission, and what happened next was only the beginning of the disaster that would soon unfold where his ugly, primal lust for little Alexa Bliss was concerned.

"Hey, Alexa, any chance we could get a couple of coffees in here? Black for me, cappuccino with double milk for your fucking pussy of a boss," he drawled obnoxiously into the intercom.

"_Umm... sure. I'll be through in five minutes," _came Alexa's reply, uneasy but eager to please as ever.

I eyed Miz with suspicion.

"What? I just want some coffee," he protested with an exaggerated wave of his hand.

Alexa soon arrived, right on time; gingerly carrying two cups on a tray with a sweet, dutiful smile on her lips. As she deposited Miz's cup before him on the desk, he gave me a discreet wink, then furtively moved the cup so it was in line with the trajectory of Alexa's arm as she turned to leave.

"Ah, God! Jesus Christ, woman, watch where you're going! Damn that's hot!" he thundered as the coffee coated the legs and crotch of his trousers. It didn't take much of a social faux pas to send Alexa into red-faced panic; here looked on the verge of crying.

"Oh my God, I-I'm so sorry..." she stammered.

"...Wait there, I'll get you some towels."

As she scampered hurriedly from the room, Miz rubbed his hands together with glee.

"No pain, no gain," he breathed with a wince.

"You're unbelievable," I sighed with way too much admiration and nowhere near enough disgust.

She returned and deposited the towels on the desk.

"I'm really sorry. I'm just so clumsy sometimes it's unreal," she explained with a very nervous laugh.

"It's fine, sweetheart, honestly..." Miz smiled, before a gruesome smirk crossed his lips

"...although since it's your fault I hardly think I should be the one to clean it up."

Alexa looked at me, her pale blue eyes begging for help, to be removed from this situation.

Instead, I chuckled vindictively and said:

"I agree. I'd definitely wipe _your_ crotch if I spilled coffee on _you_, Alexa."

Now fighting back tears, Alexa began wiping away at Miz's trousers as instructed, giving him an unavoidable view down her blouse at the same time.

"Wow, someone's done this before," Miz crowed smarmily. I gave a loud chuckle, though the joke barely made sense.

Miz's 'plan' would have been admirable in its intricacy were it not so horrendously perverted and exploitative. Next thing Alexa was bending right down directly in front of him to pick the cup and saucer up from the floor, either oblivious to the close-up view she was providing him of her ass crack sticking out the top of her dress pants, or too scared not to oblige him.

"There," she breathed with the utmost relief, standing upright.

"...Sorry again. Do you need anything else?"

"Nope, you given me more than enough," Miz laughed, and I joined in once again. Just as she thought she was in the clear, he smacked her vigorously on the backside. She made a hasty exit, clearly wishing she could run but trying to remain as professional as she could in the circumstances. Again she looked to me; silently begging me to admonish Miz, or apologise to her. Just something, anything, that made her feel like a human being. And I just smiled and kept on laughing at her like the ghastly, gutless prick I now was.

At some point I'd reached a position where I wasn't accountable for practically anything anymore. I could get whatever I wanted, I was answerable to almost nobody. Morality was a choice; you could be as cruel and narcissistic as you wanted when you had this much power and it would never come back to bite you. In the end there was no point trying to live 'right.' Life was undeniably more fun when you lived by instinct, if you could suspend your conscience, that is.

Little did I know, my conscience, and the life I left behind back in the world where morality and responsibility weren't abstract concepts, were about to catch up with me in the most unexpected of ways.


	4. Chapter 4

I'm not a shy person. In fact, I could stand to be a little less inhibited when it comes to encountering new people, but this was different. These were the girls I would be waking up to every morning, the people I'd be crammed into a tiny Brooklyn apartment with. If I rubbed them the wrong way, or vice-versa, adapting to city life would be an even greater struggle. I was basically depending on them to help me find my feet.

It was the same feeling I'd had when I stood outside my dorm at the University of Northern Iowa for the first time, but with added shame in still being able to feel so daunted over half a decade of adulthood later. One of the girls that awaited me on the other side of that door all those years ago was a mischievous Lithuanian by the name of Aksana. On that day she struck me as a preening try-hard who I could never warm to; in the long run she became one of the closest and most loyal friends I made during my time at the college, and someone who to this day I still miss greatly. I've promised to make it to Europe to see her some time, if she doesn't get her green card first.

The other was Maxine Perez; for the first months she was warm and welcoming and I thought we were going to be inseparable. By the end of the year she'd callously broken the heart of another one of my good friends, and generally shown herself to be utterly self-serving and untrustworthy. I'd have paid good money to never see her again. That's the trouble with these things; nothing is as it initially seems. First impressions are not everything.

After what seemed like an eternity, and not just because of the crippling weight of the rucksack on my back, the door opened to reveal a redhead in a tanktop and three-quarter-length plaid shorts. This is going to sound appallingly narcissistic, but we spent the next ten seconds just gazing at each other's abs and biceps in admiration. We'd touched on our similar workout regimes during our brief email exchange in the weeks leading up to my move. It's so rare to find a girl who lifts, as in _really, _could-beat-most-guys-in-an-arm-wrestle lifts.

"_Oh yes_, you'll do just fine. My days as the lone source of oestrogen at the far end of the weight room are finally over." Those were the first words Becky Lynch spoke to me. No hello, no awkward courtesy questions about how my journey was, just instant acceptance, familiarity and silliness; the quickest way to my heart. I dug her muscles, I dug her attitude, I dug her dress sense, which hinted at some common musical ground, and I dug her fascinating accent.

After a shake of her my hand and a reminder of her name, Becky led me into the living area. It was just as small as the pictures made it look. A sofa, an armchair, a coffee table, a bookcase and a television, none of which were exactly top-of-the-range, were crammed together to the left of the entrance. On the other side, a second door presumably led to the bedrooms and bathroom. A small, basically-appointed kitchen stood at the far end of the room and a screen door led out from it onto the narrow balcony, where a blonde girl in a rainbow tie-dye dress stood blowing bubbles into the summer evening sky. Guess you really did get all sorts in New York.

"Emma! Emma, Kaitlyn's here!" Becky called enthusiastically. The blonde turned around, ambling lazily into the room as if she had all the time in the world, even doing a bizarre arm-thrusting dance to the pop music blaring from the kitchen radio as she went, knocking several items from the kitchen counter in her wake. And here _I _was worrying about coming across as weird.

I extended my hand to Emma just as she spread her arms for a hug. So I spread my arms. And she extended her hand. Awkward didn't begin to cover it.

"Sorry, that was stupid of me..." she apologised giddily, not looking me in the eye, or seeming to focus her gaze on anything in particular whatsoever.

"...I mean, who hugs someone they've only just met? I mean, we might end up hating each other... that's not to say you don't look nice, I just mean..."

"What Emma means to say is she's very pleased to meet you," Becky smiled fondly, her familiarity and affection for her housemate's quirks very much apparent. Emma grinned in affirmation, and I grinned back. Her apparent innocence and child-like discomfort with social formality reminded me a lot of Bayley.

"Aren't we missing someone?" I asked.

"The Brit, right?"

"I'm here," an icy, sullen voice intoned behind me, making me jump out of my skin. The door to the bedrooms had opened. The girl's appearance could not have looked more out of place in the summery glow of the room, especially when contrasted with Emma's garish garments. Her pallid skin tone suggested she'd been avoiding the recent weather like the plague. Her jet black hair and T-shirt and charcoal-grey jeans combined with it to make a striking, rather monochrome ensemble.

"So if that's Emma, and that's Becky, you must be..." I began playfully.

"Paige," she finished flatly with a roll of her eyes. No extension of a hand, nothing to suggest my arrival had affected her on an emotional level in any way whatsoever.

"Who wants a drink?" Emma interjected gaily in a vain attempt to puncture the air of tension.

"Too warm for tea or coffee, I think. Lemonade?"

Becky and I replied cheerily in the affirmative. Paige didn't dignify it with a response.

"Oh, I think I left the bottle on the balcony," Emma said, this time moving rather swiftly back toward the screen door.

"I'll get some glasses," Becky chimed in, eager to remove herself from the immediate vicinity of myself and Paige, who was now staring a hole right through me, as if I'd climbed into her treehouse uninvited without saying the secret password. It was an 80 degree day, but the air between us felt cold as ice.

I peered around frantically for some way of breaking said ice. I spied the mosaic of photographs pinned to a corkboard on the wall to Paige's left. They told a story of four fun-loving young women utterly content in each other's company. Paige didn't seem like a killjoy or a black sheep at all on this evidence; she seemed just as prone to pulling silly faces and donning all manner of novelty accessories as Becky and Emma. It was difficult to equate the smiling, wild-eyed girl from the pictures to ashen-faced, pissed off malcontent who was stood before me.

"Looks like you guys have some pretty wild times," I said, cringing at my own horribly square wording and my terrible attempt at sounding relaxed and genial.

"Yeah, we _did_," Paige sighed resignedly, placing glaring emphasis on the past tense. By this point I'd have preferred it if she just flat out told me I wasn't welcome and to fuck off.

Aside from the three girls I'd just met, the most frequently recurring face in the pictures was that of an extremely pretty blonde Latina girl; the previous occupant of my room, I presumed. In fact, her and Paige were seldom pictured away from each other's side. Maybe I was getting a little closer to discovering the root of Paige's hostility.

"Is that my predecessor?" I enquired, pointing to a picture of Paige and the mystery girl sharing a cocktail pitcher as big as their heads.

"She's quite the looker."

They were all absurdly easy on the eyes, in fact. I felt as if, were I to eventually earn a place on the wall, that I'd be uglying it up.

"Yeah, she was," Paige drawled in the same tone as before. This time the past tense didn't make sense in the context.

"Was?" I repeated, growing a little tired of this game.

"Her name was Sofia Cortez. She was my best friend. She _died_," for the first time emotion was detectable in Paige's voice; that of utter, understandable loss and disillusionment. On the plus side I now had an explanation for her behaviour. On the negative side... _fuck_. The landlord could have told me I was taking over from a dead girl. This was still a household in mourning.

"Oh God, I'm so sorry..." I began.

"I don't want to talk about it. Not with you. You don't know me and you'll never know Sofia so what's the point?" Paige fired back before I could finish, back to being as robotic and detached as before. Fortunately I was saved from any inserting my foot any further into my mouth by the arrival of Becky and Emma with the lemonade.

"Shall we all have a seat?" Becky suggested firmly. Seemingly the slightly older of the three girls, I definitely detected an alpha female mentality about her. At this moment, however, Paige wasn't in the mood to respect her elders, and remained frozen to the spot as I took my seat beside Emma on the sofa, while Becky commandeered the armchair.

"So, how about we all introduce ourselves properly? Names, ages, jobs, interests, how we ended up here. Go!" Becky instructed. I heard Paige's breathy groan behind me.

"I'm Emma Dashwood. I'm 25 years old, I'm from Melbourne, Australia. I'm a kindergarten teacher, which is appropriate, because according to my recently ex-boyfriend I have 'the emotional maturity of a 6-year-old.' I'm genetically programmed to say or do the least appropriate thing at any given time. I'm a simple soul who loves bubbles, dancing and Miley Cyrus, completely non-ironically. I came here mainly because I was tired of being judged. There's room for everybody in a city like this."

"My name is Rebecca Lynch. I'm 27, I'm from Dublin in Ireland, I'm a fitness instructor, I'm as single as someone with my weakness for terrible puns deserves to be, I'm a grunge aficionado, and I make a mean pancake. Also, contrary to stereotype I can't riverdance, I hate Guinness, and I'm not the slightest bit religious. But people _are_ always after me Lucky Charms. I came to New York because, seriously, have you _been_ to Ireland?!"

"I'm Kaitlyn Bonin. I'm also 27, I'm from Donnybrook, Iowa; you've probably never heard of it, it's about one-third _Deliverance_, two-thirds _Gilmore Girls. _I'm ruthlessly frank, loyal and protective to a fault. I love animals, moustaches and the sense of triumph that comes from out-lifting, out-drinking and I must admit, once drunk enough, out-burping men. I came here because I'd wasted way too much of my youth in the dead-end Midwest already and wanted to make something of it before it was too late."

"Oh good... you're just as bonkers as us... we won't need to uphold some false pretence of normality ... _phew_," Becky said in relief.

Emma, Becky and I shared an admiring chuckle, then turned to look expectantly at Paige. She smirked sardonically.

"I'm Paige Knight. I'm 22 and I'm from Norwich, England, and I've neither the time nor the patience for this shit. See you guys later," and with that she was gone. Emma and Becky didn't seem the slightest bit moved or surprised by this. I didn't want to pry, but I was pretty comfortable around them already.

"Is... is she OK?" I asked hesitantly.

"That girl... Sofia. What happened to her exactly?"

"She went back to Puerto Rico to visit people. Hooked up with an ex-fella, he gave her a ride home, he'd had way too much to drink..." Becky shut her eyes and winced deeply before continuing.

"...She was twenty-fucking-five. A really feisty, confident girl; worked at the same bar as Paige, that's how they met. The two of them had been living together for four months before me and Emma showed up. We all loved Sofia, she was a great laugh, but what her and Paige had, it was something else. Paige has never been the same since the day we found out. I mean, don't get me wrong, she's always been a moody little fuckwit, she's always had the colour palette of an early-90s printer, that's nothing new. But her attitude... that's not our Paige. The real Paige is..."

"...She's the most awesome, supportive, considerate, trustworthy person you could meet," Emma finished with uncharacteristic conviction in her voice, the kind that only true friendship and admiration brings out in people. It was a strong, solid unit I'd come into the midst of, that was for certain, and it was a gang I very much wanted to join.

"Well said, Em. That thing just now... she just doesn't want to admit it's over, that Sofia's never coming back. You represent the passing of time, the biting of reality. Her issue's not with you personally at all. She'll see that in time. Just give her space and she'll be bombarding you with music recommendations and piggyback requests before you know it, trust me," Becky proclaimed. It seemed a very long way away at this moment in time, but I figured I could only hope she was right.

"Does she have anyone? You know, a boyfriend or whatever?" I asked, figuring it'd be a while before I got a proper introduction from Paige herself.

"She moved over here with a fella. Only seen him in pictures; tall bloke, quite a bit older, name was Wayne or Wade or something. Anyway, they broke up not long after they got here, and I've never seen her look twice at a guy the whole time I've known her. It's bizarre, I mean, you're never short of offers when you look like she does. Never fails to amuse me how pale skin is exotic to Americans, not that it seems to help me any," Becky mused.

"What about you? Got some hunky farmboy keeping the bed warm for you back in Idaho?" Emma asked. I was too polite to correct her on the state.

"I probably wouldn't be here if I did..." I sighed wistfully.

"...Nope, been man-free for about a year; it's been the best and the worst year of my life. Best because I've had no responsibilities, I've been able to reconnect with my sister and my best friend from school and remind myself what really matters, worst because I was back where I started. Back in Donnybrook. Dolph showed me a brave new world than snatched it all away."

"Dolph?" Emma repeated with a chuckle.

"Yep, Dolph Ziggler. That's honestly his real name; Iowa is a weird place. We met at college, looking back it was never going to work. The jacked-up tomboy punk and the obnoxious frathouse-dwelling wrestling team captain... we basically hate-fucked for the first three months, but somewhere along the way we actually found common ground. We were both cynical, no-nonsense, headstrong pricks who were disastrously awful at not speaking our mind.

"And _because _Dolph was so open, I never for a second thought he'd keep anything from me. Not for two years. Not the fact that he was fucking my cousin on-and-off behind my back."

Becky let out an incredulous, disbelieving 'no!' as I reached the 'punchline,' so to speak. Yep, it's true. I thought I'd tamed the rampant fratboy, I thought I'd domesticated him, made him grow up. We had an apartment in Des Moines, steady jobs, a cat, everything.

Charlotte is my mom's brother's daughter. I never liked her. We're the same age, I used to see her about once a month growing up. She'd lived in Des Moines her whole life, and regarded Donnybrook as the seventh circle of backward, inbred hell. She never went through the awkward, pudgy phase me and Bayley did, she'd somehow managed to dodge those genes. I remember endless childhood afternoons of her turning cartwheels and juggling soccer balls on the lawn while me and BB looked on with awe and a feeling of total inadequacy.

It wasn't just jealousy, I swear. She was a nasty, entitled little brat, even then. She loved nothing more than to exploit Bayley's naivety, to bury her in peer pressure until she'd do pretty much any embarrassing thing Charlotte's wicked mind could concoct. My poor little sister found herself stuck up trees, running naked through neighbours' gardens, the works. Charlotte called AJ 'that weird little Mexican orphan girl,' no matter how many times I told her that A. she has a name, B. she's Puerto Rican and C. being adopted doesn't automatically make you an orphan.

While me and Bayley saw our growth spurts stopped at around the five foot five mark, Charlotte grew to nearly six feet tall; most of it legs, and not an ounce of it fat. She went to the University of North Carolina on a volleyball scholarship, then moved back to Des Moines just as me and Dolph were settling in there, and Bonin family etiquette demanded we met up for coffee once a week.

College hadn't matured her, only made her games all the more damaging. She didn't want anything someone else didn't already have. She was driven by glory and conquest. Stealing someone's friends or boyfriends proved you were superior, finding your own only proved you were adequate, that's how she saw it. Dolph claimed to find her just as pathetic as I did. If that was true, turned out he had a funny way of showing it.

If there's anything I'll give him credit for, at least he came clean before I rumbled him. He said it meant nothing, like they always do, but he was kind of right. He had no interest in actually dating Charlotte, as soon as she stopped being a dirty little secret she lost all attraction. That of course didn't make it any more forgiveable, it didn't make me any less upset, and it didn't stop me packing my things and heading back home. Working in the same convenience store I had when I was 16, seeing the same people, walking the same streets, God it was grim.

But I digress. I was here now, here among improbably like-minded folks. They rallied to my defence like they'd known me for years. I showed Becky pictures of Dolph and Charlotte from my phone and she took apart every aspect of their appearances in exquisite, brutal detail. I was nearly crying by the end. It was immature, it was stupid, but it was just what I needed.

Then Emma told her story of love gone awry. Her heartbreak was fresh and raw, just two weeks old in fact, and it came through in the hushed, still disbelieving way she recounted the tale; the voice of an open wound. Even in fifteen minutes in her company, I could tell there was a lot more to Emma than met the eye, a depth and a wisdom behind that ditzy, daydreaming exterior. I just wished for her sake that _Justin, _whoever _he_ was, had thought so too.

But we had each other. I could say that already with confidence. Becky and Emma were my kind of people. Paige... well, we'd just have to wait and see on that one. But then my phone rang, it was 'SummerfromAceMarketingandPublicRelationshowareyoutoday?' Seriously, she didn't take a single breath. It was the delivery of someone who had said those words so many times that they had lost all meaning. She asked how I was in that way business people do where it's a rhetorical question.

The call was regarding my job application. I had an interview, on Thursday morning, with Ms Torres. She said it like I ought to know who that was. I'd applied to that many different places it was hardly practical to do any research beyond the bare essentials. I had to be at their office in Manhattan in formal attire at 10am sharp, Ms Torres was a _very_ busy lady, apparently. They always are.

I'd almost forgotten that I was here for reasons besides finding some cool new friends to chill with. I was here to finally put that English degree to some use. I was here to achieve things beyond what misfits from the sticks are supposed to achieve. I was here to be someone.


End file.
